Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series eBook

Have you ever watched her at a big dance? She
takes possession of some large warrior who has lately
arrived from the battle-fields of Umballa or Meerut,
and she chaperones him about the rooms, staying him
with flagons and prattling low nothings. The
weaker vessel jibs a little at first; but gradually
the spell begins to work and the love-light kindles
in his eye. He dances, he makes a joke, he tells
a story, he turns round and looks her in the face.
He is lost. That big centurion is a casualty;
and no one pities him. “How can he go on
like that, odious creature!” say the withered
wall-flowers, and the Hill Captains fume round, working
out formulae to express his baseness. But he is
away on the glorious mountains of vanity; the intoxicating
atmosphere makes life tingle in his blood; he is an
[Greek: aerobataes], he no longer treads the
earth. In a few days Mrs. Lollipop will receive
a post-card from the Colonel of her centurion’s
regiment.

Ten to one an Archdeacon will be sent for to translate
this. Ten to one there is a shindy, ending in
tea and tearful smiles; for she is bound to get a
blowing up.

After what I have written I suppose it would be superfluous
to affirm with oaths my irrefragable belief in Mrs.
Lollipop’s innocence; it would be superfluous
to deprecate the many-winged slanders that wound this
milk-white hind. If, however, by swearing, any
of your readers think I can be of service to her character,
I hope they will let me know. I have learnt a
few oaths lately that I reckon will unsphere some
of the scandal-mongers of Nephelococcygia. I had
my ear one morning at the keyhole when the Army Commission
was revising the cursing and swearing code for field
service.—­(Ah! these dear old Generals,
what depths of simplicity they disclose when they get
by themselves! I sometimes think that if I had
my life to live over again I would keep a newspaper
and become a really great General. I know some
five or six obscure aboriginal tribes that have never
yet yielded a single war or a single K.C.B.)

But this is a digression. I was maintaining the
goodness of Mrs. Lollipop—­little Mrs. Lollipop!
sweet little Mrs. Lollipop! I was going to say
that she was far too good to be made the subject of
whisperings and innuendoes. Her virtue is of such
a robust type that even a Divorce Court would sink
back abashed before it, like a guilty thing surprised.
Indeed, she often reminds me of Caesar’s wife.

The harpies of scandal protest that she dresses too
low; that she exposes too freely the well-rounded
charms of her black silk stockings; that she appears
at fancy-dress balls picturesquely unclothed—­in
a word, that the public sees a little too much of little
Mrs. Lollipop; and that, in conversation with men,
she nibbles at the forbidden apples of thought.
But all this proves her innocence, surely. She
fears no danger, for she knows no sin. She cannot
understand why she should hide anything from an admiring
world. Why keep her charms concealed from mortal
eye, like roses that in deserts bloom and die?
She often reminds me of Una in Hypocrisy’s cell.